World News - No civil war in Iraq, insists Bush - but Pentagon differs

President Bush yesterday denied that Iraq was plunging into civil war, just a day after the Pentagon painted a bloody picture of a nation caught in a spiral of increasing violence.His statement appears to widen the gap between the political message coming from a White House concerned about upcoming mid-term elections and a military establishment fearful of getting caught in another Vietnam.In his weekly radio address to the nation, Bush lashed out at critics of the war and portrayed the conflict in Iraq as an integral part of the war on terror. He said the country was not sliding into civil war.'Our commanders and diplomats on the ground believe that Iraq has not descended into a civil war. They report that only a small number of Iraqis are engaged in sectarian violence,' he said.... http://observer.guardian.co.uk

The most influential moderate Shia leader in Iraq has abandoned attempts to restrain his followers, admitting that there is nothing he can do to prevent the country sliding towards civil war. Aides say Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani is angry and disappointed that Shias are ignoring his calls for calm and are switching their allegiance in their thousands to more militant groups which promise protection from Sunni violence and revenge for attacks. "I will not be a political leader any more," he told aides. "I am only happy to receive questions about religious matters."It is a devastating blow to the remaining hopes for a peaceful solution in Iraq and spells trouble for British forces, who are based in and around the Shia stronghold of Basra....http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=3HYQXH0E3XYXVQFIQMGSFGGAVCBQWIV0?xml=/news/2006/09/03/wirq03.xml

A new, deadly strain of tuberculosis has killed 52 of 53 people infected in the last year in South Africa, the World Health Organization said Friday, calling for improved measures to treat and diagnose the virus. The strain was discovered in the Kwazulu-Natal region of South Africa, and is classified as extremely drug-resistant. Drugs from three of the six second-line medicines, used as a last line of defense against TB, proved ineffective against the new strain."We are extremely worried about the issue of extreme drug resistance," said Paul Nunn, coordinator of the WHO's drug resistance department. "If countries don't have the diagnostic capacity to find these patients, they will die without proper treatment."Though even the most drug-resistant strains of TB have proven to be treatable with three classes of drugs, those drugs are more expensive and are toxic to the human body....http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,211901,00.html

Mexico's President Vicente Fox was forced to forgo his final state-of-the-nation address Friday after leftist lawmakers stormed the stage of Congress to protest disputed July 2 elections.Instead, he gave his speech on television, and called on Mexico to mend deep divisions that he said threaten the nation's newfound democracy.It was the first time in modern Mexican history a president hasn't given the annual address to Congress. Fox arrived at the door of the Legislative Palace, handed in a written copy -- as the constitution requires -- and announced over the loudspeaker that he wouldn't appear before lawmakers. He did not enter the chambers, and Congress was adjourned.Appearing on television later as thousands of protesters occupied Mexico City's center, Fox said the nation "requires harmony, not anarchy."...http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/americas/09/01/mexico.protest.ap/index.html?section=cnn_world

The New York Times' Web site is blocking British readers from a news article detailing the investigation into the recent airline terror plot, turning its Internet ad-targeting technology into a means of complying with U.K. laws. "We had clear legal advice that publication in the U.K. might run afoul of their law," Times spokeswoman Diane McNulty said Tuesday. "It's a country that doesn't have the First Amendment, but it does have the free press. We felt we should respect their country's law." Visitors who click on a link to the article, published Monday, instead got a notice explaining that British law "prohibits publication of prejudicial information about the defendants prior to trial." The blocked article reveals evidence authorities have in the alleged plot to use liquid explosives to down U.S. airliners over the Atlantic. ...http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/08/29/world/main1948298.shtml?source=RSS&attr=World_1948298

George Johnson, considered California’s oldest living person at 112 and the state’s last surviving World War I veteran, had experts shaking their heads over his junk food diet.“He had terrible bad habits. He had a diet largely of sausages and waffles,” Dr. L. Stephen Coles, founder of the Gerontology Research Group at the University of California, Los Angeles, said Friday.The 5-foot-7, 140-pound Johnson died of pneumonia Wednesday at his Richmond home in Northern California. “A lot of people think or imagine that your good habits and bad habits contribute to your longevity,” Coles said. “But we often find it is in the genes rather than lifestyle.”Johnson, who was blind and living alone until his 110th birthday when a caregiver began helping him, built the Richmond house by hand in 1935. He got around using a walker in recent years...http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13119227/